


Hydra Prelude

by osprey_archer



Series: Reciprocity Extras [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Amnesia, Crying, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gaslighting, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Overdosing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-26 06:44:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3840982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's amazing the lies you can tell to a man with no memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Check Up

"Do you remember your name?" the blonde man asks urgently. His face drifts in and out of focus. His hair looks soft and gold in the fluorescent lights, like a halo.

He would like to touch it, but when he tries to move his arm, the throbbing in his head intensifies until it is blinding.

When the pain fades enough that he can see the man again, the man is leaning forward. Worry lines etch themselves across his brow. There is an odd tension to him, like a horse held on a close rein: as if he is trying to hold back his own urgency. "Do you remember your name?" the blonde man asks again, more gently.

His head feels as if it is turning itself inside out. 

"No," he tries to say, but he can't force the word through his dry throat. It sets off a coughing fit, and pain stabs through his head with each cough.

"Shhh, shhh, honey, don't cry," says the blonde man, reaching forward, almost touching; stops, and wavers, and his hand drops out of sight. "Oh God, I can't bear..." the blonde man says, and his voice wavers and stops too.

The blonde man swallows, collects himself. He wipes a finger underneath his own eye. 

He knows the man, he thinks. He has seen him before. "I'm sorry," he mouths. The movement of his jaw only makes his head hurt a little. He hopes the man understands. 

There is a little clink. He can’t turn his head, but he flicks his eyes to the side. The blonde man is lifting a glass off a side table. A trickle of condensation drips down the side. His entire world shrinks down to that glass. His focus is so intense that he forgets the hand holding the glass, so the glass seems to be drifting through the air by magic. 

“Can you lift your head a little, sweetheart?” asks the blonde man.

He can barely understand the words. Moving his head is completely beyond him. 

The cool glass touches his lips. He tries to swallow when the blonde man tilts the glass, but it tilts too fast. The water cascades over him, his cheeks, his chin, up his nose. He’s coughing again. The world goes white with pain.

“Shh, shh, shh,” the man is saying, soft-voiced. “It’s all right, it’s all right. Don’t worry about it. Let me remember for you.”

That’s a relief. Hopefully he doesn’t need to talk either. 

His eyes are beginning to focus again. The man’s face is clear now. His hair still looks fuzzy.

“I’m Alexander,” the blonde man says. “We’re going to kill Howard Stark for hurting you like this.”


	2. Beanie Babies

The asset seems unusually calm when Pierce arrives at his room. Of course the techs have him drugged to the gills, that’s par for the course when he’s injured, but usually he’s restless and fretful despite that. 

He is not, usually, smiling. 

The asset’s gaze lifts to Pierce’s face when Pierce enters – he _knows_ he’s supposed to look at Pierce when Pierce is in the room – but when Pierce doesn’t say anything, the asset’s gaze drifts away again, and that little smile is back. He appears to be gazing adoringly at his own broken arm.

No; he’s got some sort of stuffed toy in his sling. Pierce can just see the head poking out. 

Pierce sits next to the bed and plucks the toy free. “That’s _mine_ ,” protests the asset.

He settles when Pierce slaps him. 

The toy is one of those Beanie Babies that are so popular right now. Pierce’s grandniece has a collection. This one is a little plush sea otter, holding a strip of felt seaweed between its tiny paws. 

“Where did you get this?” Pierce asks. 

“Didn’t steal it,” the asset says. He is not supposed to take trophies. They’ve had problems with this in the past. “Menendez gave it to me. ’Cause I got hurt.” He’s smiling that stupid little smile again. His eyes are fixed on the stuffed sea otter, which Pierce holds on his knee. 

Pierce could slap him again, of course, but that will become less effective if he uses it too much. Instead he says, “So that’s what he was laughing about.”

That has the asset’s eyes on his face. 

“Sweetheart, this is a little girl’s toy. You’re a soldier, the Fist of Hydra.” Pierce pauses, studying the asset’s face. Not smiling anymore. His brow is creased. He’s having trouble understanding. “You didn’t know he was making fun of you?” Pierce asks gently. 

The asset tries to look away. Pierce catches his face between both hands, gently, holding him in place. “Look at me,” he says, and holds the asset’s face until the asset complies. The asset’s skin is tacky with sweat. Pierce will need to wash his hands. 

Finally the asset is looking in Pierce’s eyes, like he’s supposed to. “This is why you need me to look after you, sweetheart,” Pierce explains. “It’s so hard for you to understand things.” He pats the asset’s cheek. “It’s not your fault, baby doll. Don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure you never work with Menendez again.” 

He certainly will. He needs a reliable handler for the asset, not someone who will suborn him with praise and stuffed toys. He’s wasted too much time with this already. 

The asset’s eyes are dull and glassy. Maybe the drugs are finally kicking in. 

Pierce puts the Beanie Baby in his briefcase. He’ll give it to his grandniece later. “Mission report,” he says, and clicks the briefcase shut.


	3. Poisoning the Well

“You’ve worked with Crossbones before,” Pierce said. “Don’t worry. He’s promised not to hurt you again.”

The asset had been scanning the lab, eyes darting between the two techs and the three armed guards, but at Pierce’s words, his wary gaze snapped to Pierce’s face. His mouth opened slightly, like he wanted to speak. Pierce waited. The asset didn’t say anything. 

He used to be chattier. He was much less interesting this way. 

“If you look after yourself, I’m sure everything will be fine,” Pierce said. He leaned over and ruffled the asset’s hair. 

One of the technicians gasped. The asset jerked away, half raising an arm.

Pierce caught hold of the asset’s hair and tightened his fingers until the asset was still. His hair was damp. The techs always washed it after getting the asset out of cryo. 

Pierce kissed the top of the asset’s head. “Make me proud, tiger,” he said, and stood up, drying his damp hand on his handkerchief. “I want him at my office as soon as you’ve finished the upgrade on his arm,” he told the head technician.

Rumlow and Rollins waited outside of Pierce’s office, sweating in their full tac gear. They’d been waiting for a while. “Do we finally get to meet this asset you’ve told us so much about?” Rumlow asked.

“Oh yes,” said Pierce. He smiled benignly as he gestured for them to sit in the comfortable chairs at the table in the corner of his office. “He’ll be right up. He’s looking forward to meeting you.”


	4. Team Spirit

The asset surges to his feet when the Secretary enters the room. “He hit me!” 

“Mission report.”

“He shot him and he _hit_ me!” 

“Sit,” the Secretary says sharply, and the asset sits. 

The Secretary bends over and takes the asset’s bruised chin between his fingers. He lifts the asset’s face to the light and inspects it. The left eye is no longer swollen shut. He has not had the chance to clean the blood from his nose off his upper lip and chin. 

The Secretary’s indifferent appraisal burns, and when he releases the asset’s chin, the asset lowers his head. But the Secretary says, “Look at me,” and there is nothing for it but for the asset to look up again. 

The Secretary sits across from him. “Mission report,” he says. 

The asset reports. His jaw aches, so he doesn’t embellish like he did after the last mission. The secretary hadn’t appreciated it anyway, not even the decapitation puns. 

There’s not much to tell. A straightforward sniping, that’s it. 

He finishes. The Secretary waits. “Tell me about Trigger,” he says. 

The asset fidgets. His jaw throbs. 

“You wanted to tell me all about this earlier,” the Secretary reminds him. “Go on.” 

The asset no longer wants to. But he mutters, “He was climbing over the back fence.”

“Look at me.”

The asset looks at him. The secretary’s gaze is mild. “Trigger was climbing over the back fence and Crossbones yelled, ‘Get back here! Your compliance will be rewarded!’”

Until then, Trigger always did everything Rumlow said when he promised that Trigger’s compliance would be rewarded. It had intrigued the asset, and he gave it a try, but apparently the magic words only worked when they came from Crossbones.

“And?” The Secretary sounds impatient. 

“He kept climbing. So Crossbones told me to shoot him.”

“Your superior officer gave you a command,” the Secretary says. “Why did you disobey?” 

Why do they have to go through this mission report rigmarole when the Secretary already knows everything? “You’re not supposed to hurt your teammates,” the asset mumbles. It’s what he said to Crossbones. He was so sure Crossbones would get in trouble for breaking that rule.

“Who told you that?” The Secretary’s voice is sharp.

No one told him that. The asset just knew it, like he knows how to shoot a gun. 

“Finish the report,” the Secretary says. His voice is heavy. 

“Crossbones shot Trigger.”

“And then?” 

“He was angry that I didn’t do it. So he hit me with the butt of his gun.” The asset ought to stop there, but he can’t help it: he goes on. “He hit me in the face,” he says, and gestures at the bruises, as if the Secretary had somehow failed to notice them and will now react with appropriate horror. “See?” he says, and his eyes fill with tears.

The Secretary sighs. “Sweetheart,” he says. “Stop it.”

“You don’t care,” the asset says. His face scrunches up as he tries not to cry. It hurts. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, pet. Of course I care.”

“You don’t care,” the asset insists. His tears sting in the small cut on his cheek. “Crossbones hit me and you don’t care.”

“Of course I care.” The Secretary’s voice has gone soft, gentle. “I’m so sorry you’re hurting. Now stop crying, sweetheart. It hurts me to think how anyone else would laugh if they saw the Fist of Hydra crying like a baby. You’re much too old for this.”

The asset cannot stop crying. No. A hard ball of stubbornness grows in his chest, and the asset doesn’t want to stop. The Secretary’s stream of soothing words continues, but the asset doesn’t listen. He watches, instead: watches the Secretary’s hand tighten and fidget as the asset continues to cry. The wrist turns. The Secretary is checking the time.

The asset watches as if from far away. He is still crying, but that seems far away too, and quite disconnected from him; and then he stops. He feels as if he is floating far above the earth in the sharp cold wind of the stratosphere, and it is wonderful. 

“Good boy,” says the Secretary. “You won’t embarrass yourself like that again, will you?”

“No,” says the asset. “I won’t.”


	5. Recruitment

The sound of sobbing wakes the asset in the night. 

He starts to sit up, but that lets cold air into his sleeping bag, and he hunkers back down in the warmth instead. Pulls his sleeping bag over his head, in fact. It barely muffles those half-smothered, snuffling sobs. 

Who the fuck is crying, anyway? No one got injured on the mission. Crying over nothing, and so loudly, too. What a moron.

The asset always cries silently. It doesn’t count if no one knows. 

His eyes are smarting now. It’s not fair that Crossbones made him sleep all on his own out here. If he was in the same room with the others, he could throw one of his boots at that idiot to shut him up. 

Crossbones growls, “Shut the fuck up, Kilobyte.” 

“Sorry,” Kilobyte says, his voice clogged and wet. 

A few moments of silence pass. The asset snuggles back into his sleeping bag, pulling it warm and tight around him. Maybe he can even get the same dream back, the flying dream. He feels like he’s had it before, although of course he’s not sure. Maybe he should ask the Secretary.

His whole body locks up at the thought. The Secretary has only ever been kind to him, but still. Maybe he shouldn’t ask. 

Kilobyte lets out another sob, half-strangled, like he’d tried to stop crying by holding his breath. 

“ _Jesus_ ,” groans Scarface; and Crossbones says, “Man the fuck up, you pussy.” 

“You told me – ” Kilobyte’s voice has gone harsh. “When I signed up, you said – ” 

“We’re fighting for peace and order and freedom, just like I told you,” Crossbones says. “Not my problem if you’ve got some stupid ideas about what that means.” There’s a thump, a rustling noise. The asset thinks Crossbones gave Kilobyte a comradely smack on the shoulder. “You can always bring up your concerns with the Secretary.” 

Silence.

“Smart man.” Crossbones laughs. “Now shut up and let us sleep.” 

This time the silence stays, and the asset falls asleep again. But the flying dream does not come back.


	6. Tranquility

Pierce draws the car to a stop by a crumbled alleyway near the edge of Odessa. The tracker in the asset’s arm says he’s close, at least right now. He’s been traveling fast. Pierce needs to move quickly. 

He gets out of the car, not quite closing the door behind him. No reason to spook the asset with loud noises. He’s clearly already spooked as hell. 

Four of Hydra’s top operatives, and the asset cut through them like a hot knife through butter. It’s impressive, sure, but mostly it’s irritating. Pierce is supposed to be attending a conference in Budapest, not chasing after the asset in the aftermath of his failure to kill Natasha Romanov. 

“Sweetheart,” Pierce calls, not to loud. The asset’s got super-hearing; he’ll hear. “Come here, tiger. Tell me what you’re doing.” 

He doesn’t see the asset till the asset lands next to him on the crumbling sidewalk, crouched like a cat. Pierce glances up at the roofs, three and four stories above. They must be slippery, too; it was raining earlier. 

The asset straightens up. He’s very pale in the moonlight, eyes so wide that Pierce can see the whites around the edges, and his right hand moves in quick uncertain movements as he speaks. 

“I’m looking for her,” he explains. He speaks in rapid bursts, drawing in a gasp on each pause as if he can’t get enough air. “Before she releases the plague, I didn’t realize she could release it too, I thought she was just a courier. And they, my team, they wouldn’t let me out to stop it, they didn’t even – they didn’t understand what I was saying.” He stops. “You understand, don’t you?” 

“Of course I do, sweetheart,” Pierce soothes. He struggles to remember the details of the plague story he made up for the asset. A new strain of bubonic, maybe? “They didn’t know all the details of your mission, that’s all. I can’t trust them like I trust you.”

The asset doesn’t seem to hear. “If I can just find her,” he says, and starts to walk. 

Pierce puts out an arm to stop him. The asset stops short against it as if he ran into an electrified fence. “Calm down,” Pierce orders. “I’ll help you complete your mission, but you need to _calm down_.” He retrieves a pill bottle from his pocket and shakes a few pills into his hand. “Have a tranquilizer, sweetheart.”

The asset steps back. “I don’t want – ”

“Yes you do.” Pierce says. “Look at yourself. You can’t finish your mission like this, can you? Now open your mouth.” 

The asset has backed up against the wall, palms flat against the wet concrete. “I don’t like them,” the asset says. “I don’t like them, I don’t – ” Pierce grasps the asset’s jaw in his hand, holding his mouth open. The asset pants, his foul-smelling breath full on Pierce’s face. 

“You don’t like anything that’s good for you,” Pierce says. “That’s why you need me to look after you. Open wide.” Upper lip curling, Pierce puts the tranquilizers in the asset’s mouth – four of them; that should be enough to knock out his ridiculous metabolism – and presses his hand over the asset’s mouth until he swallows. The asset’s face is sticky. His greasy hair brushes the back of Pierce’s hand. Pierce lets go. “I’m taking you in for treatment,” Pierce tells him. 

The asset shivers. “Will it hurt?”

“You may have unleashed a plague on the earth, and _that’s_ what you’re worried about?” 

“Please let me stop her,” the asset says. His voice is already slurring from the tranquilizers. “I’ll go to treatment after. Please – ”

“Treatment first,” Pierce says. He opens the passenger door of the car and pushes the asset in. He accidentally cracks the asset’s head on the doorframe. The asset howls. “Don’t be such a baby.” 

They have a long drive ahead of them. There are no memory-wiping facilities in Odessa. Pierce shouldn’t have sent the asset here. He’s been out of cryo too long. 

They soon pass beyond the city limits. The full moon illuminates the bare countryside, but the asset doesn’t look out the window. He slumps in the passenger seat, head drooping, and sniffles. 

The intervals between sniffles are just long enough that after each sniffle, Pierce thinks maybe he’s finally stopped. Then he sniffles again. 

“That’s not going to keep the plague from being released,” Pierce tells him, irritated. “Stop it.”

The asset covers his face clumsily with his hands. The snuffling becomes more frequent. Pierce turns on the radio to drown it out, but he can’t find anything but trashy Europop. He tries not to think about the cocktail party he’s missing. There was going to be a pianist playing Liszt. 

After another half hour of pathetic sniffling, Pierce pulls over. He gets the tranquilizers out and shakes two more in his palm. 

“I’ll stop,” the asset cries, panicky. He cringes against the door, as far away from Pierce as he can get. “I’ll stop, I promise.”

“Open your mouth,” Pierce says. He unbuckles his seat belt and crawls over the gearshift, using his weight to pin the asset down. He jams his thumb between the asset’s teeth and levers his jaw open, and once he’s got the tranquilizers in he pushes his hand under the asset’s chin and forces the asset’s head back so the asset can’t spit them out. 

Suddenly they’re falling. The asset got the car door open. 

Pierce lands on top of the asset, knocking the wind out of him. He manages to mash his hand over the asset’s mouth before the asset can spit the pills out. Pierce’s hand is sticky with the asset's snot and tears. Drizzle flickers down. The wet grime of the roadside soaks through the knees of his pants. This suit is absolutely ruined. 

The asset gags for a while, but finally he manages to swallow properly. Pierce shoves a finger in the asset’s mouth to check that he’s not hiding the pills in his cheek. 

“There,” says Pierce. He pats the asset’s cheek and slides off him, staggering to his feet. His suit is filthy from knees to ankles. It’s Savile Row, too. “All better.” 

The asset rolls over and vomits down the embankment. Pierce uses his foot to roll him onto his back again, and waits for the rain to wash the filth off his face.

The asset has gone all floppy, so Pierce has to manhandle him back into the car. He tries to slam the door, but the asset’s foot is still hanging out. Pierce shoves it inside and stalks around to the drivers’ side, where he settles back in his seat. He turns on the seat heater. It’s blissful after the chilly rain.

“You’re going to be quiet now, aren’t you?” Pierce says. 

The asset works his mouth, like he wants to speak. Finally he just nods. 

The humorous side of this response strikes Pierce. He laughs. “Very good,” he tells the asset. “You’ve got the hang of it already.”


	7. Menendez

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Menendez brings his teammate a present.

Menendez almost left right after his debriefing. If he left quick, he might still make it home in time for dinner, maybe help Susana with her homework. 

But he couldn’t bring himself to leave without stopping by the hospital wing to check on the rookie one last time.

The rookie wasn’t a rookie, not really. Menendez had thought he was because he wouldn’t tell Menendez his name, just his dumb codename (the asset? Really?). Classic stick-up-your-ass rookie mistake, just like the bravado he put on when Menendez asked about his previous missions – just asking, just to shoot the shit, but the rookie got all “Classified” about it. Rookies, Christ. 

But Menendez had never worked with any rookie who was that cool in the field, or shot that well, even at the end when he had a bullet in his right arm. 

Menendez peeked around the door. The rookie’s left arm was gone. Menendez’s stomach just about fell out, till he remembered that left arm was a fancy-ass prosthetic, anyway. 

He hoped SHIELD was thinking about releasing that tech to the public soon. He had a couple buddies from the Gulf War who could benefit. 

“Menendez,” said the rookie. He didn’t look good: his face all sweaty, pupils pinpoints in his eyes, his heartbeat way too fast on the heart rate monitor.

“You okay?” Menendez asked. “You want me to call a nurse?”

The rookie’s heart rate spiked. “No!” 

“All right.”

Menendez didn’t feel good about leaving a teammate who looked that bad, though, so he settled in. Good-bye, dinner.

He’d never been much of a talker, and neither was the rookie, so for a while Menendez just sat. Then he got out his rosary. If he was gonna be sitting for a while, he might as well use the time.

By the time he’d prayed the whole rosary, the rookie’s heart rate had slowed down. His face looked a little less sweaty, too. Maybe Menendez would get home in time to tuck Susana in, at least. “You want some water?” Menendez asked.

The rookie nodded, so Menendez held the cup for him to drink. On his way out he’d better ask the nurse to find the rookie a straw.

“I gotta go,” Menendez said.

“No,” the rookie said.

“I really gotta. I promised my little girl I’d be home in time to read her a bedtime story,” Menendez said, and tucked the nubbly blanket up under the rookie’s chin. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

The rookie looked down. His mouth turned down, and he really looked awfully young. Menendez wondered, not for the first time, whether the rookie really oughta be cleared for field duty. His shooting was fucking amazing, sure. But still.

“I got you a present,” Menendez said.

He hadn’t really. He had bought the Beanie Baby for Susana, but she already had a dozen of the things, and he didn’t feel good about leaving the rookie here on his own. 

He had just a moment of doubt when he got the stuffed otter out of his go bag. What if the rookie didn’t want some dumb stuffed animal? 

But the rookie’s face brightened. “For me?”

Menendez cracked a grin. “Yeah, for you,” he said. He set the Beanie Baby on the rookie’s chest, but it looked sort of precarious there, so Menendez stuck it in his sling. “Sleep tight,” he said. “You earned it, kid.”

***

He stopped at a Wendy’s on the way into HQ the next morning to buy the rookie a frosty. But when he got to the hospital wing, and asked about seeing his teammate, the lady at the desk said, “He’s been moved.”

“Moved?” The frosty dripped with condensation. Menendez’s fingers were freezing. “Where?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s classified.”

Fucking SHIELD. He wouldn’t get anything else out of her, he knew, but he couldn’t help it: “He’s my teammate,” he said.

She gave a barely perceptible shrug. He kind of wanted to dump the frosty on her hair.

He never did work with the rookie again.


End file.
